Old 11-25-2014, 09:15 AM   #1
X-Raym
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Default Vector Based Reaper THeme Element

HI !

I recently see more and more plugins with vector based User Interface, such as MeldaProductions's VST and The Mangle, and I am really impressed by these.

Vector based element for UI have a lot of advantages :
  • Light weight
  • Easily customizable
  • No scaling artifacts
It would be very nice if Reaper could take advantages of some of this, for example for buttons (when there are upscaled they become very ugly), but for other elements in the theme.


What do you think of that ?


I do understand that this will not happen soon cause it is a very different thing than actual theme structure, but I wanted to open the discussion on this

Last edited by X-Raym; 11-25-2014 at 10:03 AM.
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Old 11-25-2014, 09:52 AM   #2
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I agree. Vectors are more reliable and customizable than bitmaps although they cannot represent textures quite good.
But textres are for fixed dimensions and suitable for certain resolutions.
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Old 11-25-2014, 10:02 AM   #3
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You are totally right for textures,
and I loved them on certain UI, just see the Native Damage Kontakt Instrument interface, it is gorgious :P

But do wee need such textures for our Daw ?
If you take a close look at every new theme on Reaper stash, few of them have this kind of textures. Actually, they often use
  • flat
  • shades
  • gradient
Things for which vector is meant to be


REAPER has always wanted to have a lightweight customizable and compatible with all kind of computer (low performance or high performance).
We could maybe have some places for Bitmap, and other for vectors... ?


Here is a Pro & Cons recap for Vector based GUI. I didn't find a lot of other resources about this subject.
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Old 11-25-2014, 11:35 AM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by adXok View Post
I agree. Vectors are more reliable and customizable than bitmaps although they cannot represent textures quite good.
But textres are for fixed dimensions and suitable for certain resolutions.
google search images for "photorealistic vector art" and you will be amazed what vectors can do
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Old 11-25-2014, 12:28 PM   #5
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@heda
That's totally true
but it take time, LOT of time :P
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Old 11-25-2014, 12:48 PM   #6
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I'd love to be able to use vectors. They would be ideal for my theme and others of its type. I'm all about flexibility but as it stands now you can only do so much.

Of course, this is probably crazy difficult to implement as of now.
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Old 11-25-2014, 01:14 PM   #7
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@Swamp Ape
That's for sure.
Talking about that, highlight the pro and cons, express our desire (or non-desire) is a first step

If someone find other great vector UI, feel free to share !
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Old 11-25-2014, 01:25 PM   #8
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i dunno for sure, just guessing real-time vector graphics rendering for complex GUI might use a lot of CPU/GPU processing. And might involve very complicated code to get 'realistic' textures.

PNG is great. Even if it's vector based design, a rendered PNG make it more efficient to load.

WALTER with pink lines is scalable, strechable isn't it?
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Old 11-25-2014, 01:29 PM   #9
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I'd love to be able to stretch mixer tracks rather than having to switch between layouts, for example.
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Old 11-25-2014, 01:47 PM   #10
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@pakkuncung
You probably right about performance but I could not find actual study on this. I just saw that some plugins compagnies that had pixel based VST UI switch to vector based VST UI. The downside may not be as hard as we think :P (you can read this documentation about MeldaProductions PLugin STyle editor to find infos about how their UI work)

Actually vector based are not meant to replace realistic textures. It would be for flat, shaded, gradient design only of course. ANd I guess we can imagine an hybrid system, with some vector-based UI elements, and some other in PNG if needed.

As you said, Pixels with no pink lines are scalabes in WALTER.
So why vector ?
To avoid this.
(be sure your browser doesn't scale the picture).

As you can see, when buttons are up scaled, they become very pixelated. More, even the Text button became pixelated (whereas they are not PNG based), because the rasterization come before the scaling.

@Swamp Ape
Good point !
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Old 11-25-2014, 01:55 PM   #11
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Repeatable patterns (like web page backgrounds) would solve the stretchable texture issue, to some degree.
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Old 11-25-2014, 01:58 PM   #12
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Yes !
We can learn a lot from web design technics.
For example, the way it the color are rendered. It came not from PNG or vector, it is just simple human readable code which is easily rendered by the browser.
Once again, this is purely theoretical, and I understand that render a webpage is not the same things as render of software.
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Old 11-25-2014, 03:33 PM   #13
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Have you seen this?





from this thread http://forum.cockos.com/showpost.php?p=289144

it was 2009. solid proof, with proper algorithm JS GFX is able to render raytrace 3D in real-time.

but maaannn...look at the code LOL
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Old 11-25-2014, 03:36 PM   #14
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What the hell !!

THIS is impressive !

But we will probably get enough from gradient for theming
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Old 11-25-2014, 03:43 PM   #15
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WALTERing with PNG is fiddly enough. I couldn't imagine using vector. Everything must be measured with scale hahaha
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Old 11-25-2014, 04:05 PM   #16
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In webdesign, we use scale almost every time what is fix is just some borders and spacing. :P
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Old 11-26-2014, 07:56 AM   #17
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Vectorial GUI is the way to go, check out the new FL STudio BETA 12

http://www.image-line.com/flstudio/flstudio12.php

Flexible and simply amazing I find. And it looks to me if you check FL Studio, Meldaproduction plugins and even Presonus new http://www.presonus.com/products/StudioLive-RM-Series looks like all based on Vectorial and it gets that Flat UI that is more cleaner and easy on the eye. And what I love most is the fact that it's Sizable in any way you wish ;-)

All this to say I'm loving Vectorial UI
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Old 11-26-2014, 08:14 AM   #18
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@Solar
FL studio !!
I started to think that it was bit early to talk about Vector UI but if another well-known DAW does this, it is surely a thing to reconsider !
Now, I think we are allow to dream about a Vector-based Walter. It could be very gorgious

I have the feeling that Vector based UI could be a solution for this issue : Replacing all OS-based GUI elements with skinnable elements
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Old 11-26-2014, 12:36 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by X-Raym View Post
@Solar
FL studio !!
I started to think that it was bit early to talk about Vector UI but if another well-known DAW does this, it is surely a thing to reconsider !
Now, I think we are allow to dream about a Vector-based Walter. It could be very gorgious

I have the feeling that Vector based UI could be a solution for this issue : Replacing all OS-based GUI elements with skinnable elements
Totally agree, i'm convinced Vector Ui is the way forward ;-)
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Old 12-16-2014, 12:38 AM   #20
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I know that there are other DAWs like Magix' Samplitude Music Studio which are implementing Qt (QML) for Vector based graphics. Maybe this would be the way to go for Cockos. Should be even some kind of open source project. But I think it's quite a big learning curve for Devs as well, especially if they're not THAT into GFX ;-)
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Old 12-16-2014, 06:33 AM   #21
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Yes, this would be a huge changement, and all of us (themers, and especially developpers) woulf have to learn a lot of new things.
Does it worth it ? That's why I think, but we are here to discuss about this :P
If a vector GUI developper could share his opinion, it would be perfect !
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Old 12-19-2014, 01:25 PM   #22
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First, let me say that the default theme of Reaper is SVG.

Quote:
Originally Posted by X-Raym View Post
HI !

I recently see more and more plugins with vector based User Interface, such as MeldaProductions's VST and The Mangle, and I am really impressed by these.

Vector based element for UI have a lot of advantages :
  • Light weight
  • Easily customizable
  • No scaling artifacts
It would be very nice if Reaper could take advantages of some of this, for example for buttons (when there are upscaled they become very ugly), but for other elements in the theme.


What do you think of that ?


I do understand that this will not happen soon cause it is a very different thing than actual theme structure, but I wanted to open the discussion on this
I posted a thread about this like some years back or something.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.p...ghlight=vector
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Old 12-19-2014, 01:34 PM   #23
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He may use vectors to create the images, but the final images are not .svg

The pink lines do allow a lot more SVG like behaviour but its not the same. There are no vector or even image masks (allowing textures, think CSS or blending properties in video game textures).
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Old 12-19-2014, 01:41 PM   #24
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@reapercurious
I'm sorry but I dont see any SVG (or any vector based) file in Default_4.0.ReaperThemeZip, Default_3.0.ReaperThemeZip, Classic_4.x.ReaperThemeZip... Just .ico and .png. Did I missed something ? Maybe you spoke about the original project file for the graphic elements, which are surely design on a vector app ?
There is some "vector" place in theme, it is the color that we can adjust in Theme Options, but actually, a the Default_4.0.ReaperThemeZip contains 576 png files... We are far from a full vector based GUI ! :P

It is nice that the discussion already started in your other thread, I didn't find it when I make my research !
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Old 12-19-2014, 01:43 PM   #25
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@Fregler
More blending options (or actually, more place where to choose blending mode) would be nice...
... and some easy color settings just like in CSS would be awesome !
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Old 12-24-2014, 04:33 PM   #26
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Ask White Tie if the default theme is vector.

Version 5 can go ahead and be vector all the way, even for custom themes, that would be great.
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Old 12-25-2014, 11:16 AM   #27
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No need to ask him, I read his Walter Themers Guide entirely, and there is no single occurence of the word "vector" on it. =/
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Old 12-25-2014, 04:11 PM   #28
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if Reaper would load into a browser you could theme Reaper with HTML5 and CSS, this way you could easily use SVG.

on the other hand, it would only need the code from a browser to render SVGs. a programm that can render ICO, PNG and JPG should be able to do that. cant be rocket science, I guess.

and textures? nah, not for me. and of course not that photorealistic vintage bullshit ... we had that in webdesign 10 years ago. its gone. for good reasons.
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Old 07-18-2019, 12:51 AM   #29
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+1 voting for this feature
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Old 07-18-2019, 06:24 AM   #30
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So are vector based graphic going to be a part of the reaper roadmap ?
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Old 07-18-2019, 07:41 AM   #31
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There is already beta themes for REAPER v6 and they are not vector based.


Though, there has been some hidpi display improvements in recent releases.


Vector based graphics has other advantages of course (like quickly change color theme without having to edit tons of .png etc).


But I think we can say that this will not happen. There is higher priority stuffs anyway.
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